If getting fat is mandatory in Libya...

I was reading on Lebeeya's blog about Libya being a country in North Africa, where copious consumption of carbs and blowing up to the size of a Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade float is essentially mandatory. Then I guess when I visit, يجوز لي ان آكل ، وتناول الطعام ، وتناول الطعام حتى أحصل على الدهون! For all of you that don't speak Arabic (and I don't at all, I just ran it through Google Translate at http://translate.google.com/, my go to source for anything like that!), it means, "I shall eat, eat, eat, until I get fat."

At 5'6", 130 lbs, people, especially those of Arab or Filipino or Samoan descent seem to shove food at me and insist I need to eat, that I'm too skinny! I love these people! Society says I'm not skinny enough! What can I say? I have always been slender and "long" , from the day of my birth, when I weighed 7 lbs., 7 oz., and was 21 inches long. It's those damn Frisian Dutch genes kicking in from van mijn vader's kant van de familie. De Harkema familie is Nederlands, na alles! Quite frankly, English and Dutch are extremely close to each other, linguistically. More so than any of the other Germanic languages (yes, German is another in the same group). If you speak one of the Germanic tongues fluently, learning the others are pretty easy. And then there's Frisian Dutch. The Frisians don't consider it to be Dutch, and the Dutch CERTAINLY don't consider it to be a Dutch derivitive. It's extremely close to English... some sentences will be pronounced EXACTLY the same, though spelled VERY differently. From Wikipedia's article on the West Frisian language spoken in Friesland (of all the places I want to go in the world, Leeuwarden, Friesland, my paternal homeland, is where I want to go-- even more so, at times, than Libya) comes this blurb:

A saying, "As milk is to cheese, are English and Fries," describes the observed similarity between Frisian and English. One rhyme that is sometimes used to demonstrate the palpable similarity between Frisian and English is "Rye bread, butter and green cheese is good English and good Frisian," which sounds not tremendously different from "Brea, bûter en griene tsiis is goed Ingelsk en goed Frysk." [8]

Another rhyme on this theme, "Bûter, brea en griene tsiis; wa't dat net sizze kin is gjin oprjochte Fries" ( example (help·info)) (in English, "Butter, rye bread and green cheese, whoever can't say that is no genuine Frisian") was used, according to legend, by the 16th century Frisian freedom fighter Pier Gerlofs Donia as a shibboleth that he forced his captives to repeat to distinguish Frisians from Dutch and Low Germans).

I also came across this ad on Facebook, and it's for a company that I think the young, hip, Muslim and Muslimah can find cool. One of the things that I hope most Libyan, Muslim women that visit this blog end up doing is wearing hijab. To me, modesty is beautiful. Yours, mine, and everyone's. And since I do hope to someday visit Libya, and I know the sort of attention a blonde, blue eyes, fair skinned, obviously American woman will attract, I plan to wear hijab. If it's on the tail end of my honeymoon with habibi, mio uomo, mio nuovo marito Alex, then I'll have his "protection"-- he's very respectful of me, and all women. And when I say he's a saint among us, I mean it. He'd have to be to put up with the likes of me, and WANT me to be his wife. And to pursue me, when I totally wasn't interested in him. I now don't know why that's the case. I guess because I had to have a little more heartbreak, and kiss another frog, before finding my handsome prince.

I should probably stop, and just link to the page I referenced early on, before going on a birdwalk about the man I love. It's Ummah Couture, and is a U.S. based company, apparently. They have hijabs, hijab pins, accessories (like fold up prayer mats), and more. Your mother's or your grandmother's hijab doesn't need to be YOUR hijab, and this company caters to the young, hip, stylish Muslimah that wishes to follow her faith without being, uh, "boring." I was going to say "dowdy" and "uncool", but I figured that'd be a bit harsh and judgmental! So here's the coolest new site for the young, hip, on-the-go Muslimah (and Muslims in general) that I've seen in awhile-- http://www.ummahcouture.com/